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Topic Review (Newest First)

09-23-2009 02:32 PM

hellosailor

"the expected life span of a laptop is 4 years on land."
According to who and for what reason? I know some corporate types who bash 'em up every 18 months and need them replaced. And some kids who got laptops for college, treated 'em right, and are still using them in grad school, more than 4 years later, with zero damage. I got a good seven years out of my last one and then passed it on.

"therefore it will run less on a boat" Or, therefore it will last twice as long on a boat, where it isn't obsoleted because it doesn't need a new OS or new software or more horsepower to run the same old nav software and email.

09-23-2009 11:34 AM

celenoglu

In my opinon all brands will do. But be informed that the expected life span of a laptop is 4 years on land. Therefore it will run less on a boat.

All I've ever used are Macs, and the recent aluminum unibody Macbook Pros have stood up to several drops off the table onto the sole in my Hunter 22.

08-04-2009 03:43 PM

CKH

A year ago I washed some laundry, and found my Cruzer Micro 4gb Flash Drive in the bottom of the pile. I plugged it in and it is still working perfectly today.
The future of on board computing looks bright.

08-04-2009 08:46 AM

St Anna

I have a 2nd hand dell latitude for the last 5 years and it has soaked up enough accidental stray salt water as well as the normal salty environment to give up the ghost - but it still navigates us and has our itunes - best computer ever - but I think having it on all the time means the warmth may reduce humidity in the unit. - just a theory.

08-04-2009 01:57 AM

jaakennuste

Dell has now sunlight readable tough laptop, based their business Latitude family. Also semi-tough model, witch is more affordable:

Toughbooks are great if you really need the rugged/waterproof/daylight capable screen....but if not, get a "throwaway" and back it up and you'll be ahead of the game financially and feature wise.

I agree with Cam. It used to be that picking out a laptop was a major purchase that you spent quite a lot of time considering, a treasured item that had to last for years, etc. Now with 300$us netbooks, who cares. Just make sure it is easy to pull the hard drive out of it.

07-30-2009 02:57 AM

jaakennuste

There is IP67 and NMEA 6 compatible unit available from stealth computers: